


Bullet

by NobleZeda



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Kidnapped Derek, Kidnapped Kira, Kidnapped Scott, Kidnapped Stiles, Kidnapping, M/M, Pining Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-02-11 01:27:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2048031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobleZeda/pseuds/NobleZeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not hostages. Kidnapped. Derek, Kira, and Scott sit alone, solemnly in the six by six room, silently stare at each other until the walls feel like they're pressing in with the intent to kill. There's only one door, and it hasn't opened. Not in over a day. No food. No water. </p><p>But then it opens, and Derek sinks back into the wall, because it is not hope, it is not salvation. No. It is a beaten and bloodied Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bullet

**Hour 1.**

 

Derek wakes slumped up against something ridiculously cold, in contrast to his raging body heat. He has a headache, which he isn't sure is from stress or the splitting pain he remembers that knocked him out.

It takes a long moment and a lot of mustered willpower to swing his neck up from the awkward angle it has been hanging at and analyze his surroundings. From the off, there isn't much to take in. The walls are plain, obviously metal - the type that looks and sounds like it would be very thin, but in actuality is a real bitch to get through. It doesn't stop Derek from working his way into a standing position and approaching the wall opposite him. He realizes with a dull shock that he is only wearing one shoe.

It's a single stride for Derek to get all the way across the room. He could stand with his legs apart and have feet touching both walls with only moderate discomfort.

He raises a fist, not quite panicked enough to sprout claws yet, and strikes it against the surface. The metal resounds and clatters but otherwise does not shift in the slightest.

Derek tries to pinpoint how dense the metal may be from the reverberations, is just about to pound on the wall again when he is stunned nearly shitless. From the other side of the wall comes a bang in reply.

Derek does two things halfway: one, falls naturally into a defensive position, and two, takes a stunted step back. The shock, toppled with such disorientation, is enough to catch him off guard in a way where he can't think as straight as he normally would. He decides that it can't hurt to test it again.

"Hey!" he bellows, and pounds his fist with as much force as he can muster.

He's surprised at how easy it is to hear - he would have expected booby traps and magical restraints on his powers. But, no. He can hear a man, a foot away from him, standing on the other side of the wall and laughing. It's like he's having a goddamn giggle fit, and Derek can't do anything to shut him up.

"Hey, I can hear you!" Derek shouts, banging repeatedly on the wall to try to elicit some information from whoever the hell was doing this. "What are you doing? Let me the fuck out, or I swear to God-"

Another bang, level with Derek's head. And a call back from a throaty, choked voice, "Stay quiet, or you'll never see the outside of that cage again, animal!"

Derek feels a growl break through the base of his throat before he has a chance to control it. His fist is halfway to the wall again before he can reign himself back in. He doesn't say anything, because he knows that he has to wisen up about his surrounding conditions before he begins testing his limits.

 

**Hour 2.**

 

If Derek was a human, his legs would have gone numb from pacing a while ago. He can't actually go forward and backward or side to side, due to the size of his holding cell, so he goes from corner to corner in a square. Mainly, what he thinks about is what he's doing here. How whoever is outside managed to get him here. If and how he is going to get out. That only having one shoe on is very annoying.

And alongside those thoughts, doubt has managed to creep in. Does anybody know he's gone yet? How long has he been here? And how long, if they haven't yet, would it take them to find out? Derek isn't strictly pack, anyway. There's no reason to assume that Scott would help. Well, apart from the fact that he's Beacon Hills's very own Captain America.

And, even worse still, Derek thinks about someone else. Only in flashes, which he quickly extinguishes in order to preserve his own sanity, but they come nonetheless. Someone who Derek really _shouldn't_ think about, for all sorts of reasons. But, as stubborn as ever, Stiles insists on barging into his thoughts anyway, because nothing Derek has ever tried to do has stopped him in the past. Why should it now?

At first, Derek is worried about Stiles. He isn't sure why. But his instincts are running wild at the moment, and he has some instinct within himself to protect Stiles. With any luck, however, Stiles is not here, being held captive in another metal box. Or worse.

But Derek has to assume the worst, because all that he can smell around him is human. It's dizzying, how many human emotions are in this smell, to the point where Derek is amazed that he can think straight. Some new, some old, and they have quite a broad spectrum. Derek can smell confusion, fear, hatred, grief, and dozens of other emotions of the sort at the drop of a hat. And the kicker? No two smells are the same. There have been multiple humans in this box before Derek. There is no trace of the scent of relief.

 

**Hour 4.**

 

Derek may be going insane. There has been no conclusive sound outside of the box for more than forty minutes. The many scents in the room are becoming overwhelming, and Derek can smell traces of his own looming panic mingling in with them.

And then, he smells something different. He smells confidence and frustration, hears a few grunts, realizes with a jump of his eyebrows that the same human from before is outside, and that he's carrying something. No. Someone. Two hearts pounding. Two sets of blood running. Two entirely different scents. And Derek can tell, because one is a werewolf. And it's more than familiar to him. It's Scott.

There's the sound of an incredibly rusty door opening that makes Derek's ears scream. It happens just on the other side of that wall. Derek can hear every rustle of fabric as Scott is laid down, cringes once more as the door screeches shut.

A spark of fury rises in Derek, and he slams his hand against the wall again. "Hey!" he shouts, beating his fist against the metal repeatedly.

A bang of its own retaliates once more, directly in front of Derek's face. "Shut the hell up! Or you'll wake him..." The last part is said almost tauntingly. It's sickly sweet. Derek actually growls this time.

There's another sound, one of a bar sliding. Derek imagines that it's the extreme measures whoever dares to do this has to take to keep the door shut. Derek's clawed fingers grasp the handle of his door, the kind that slides rather than swings, and he ends up throwing himself sideways into the wall with the excess fury of his yank. The door opens easily. How stupid could Derek be? In a room for four hours and he hasn't even tried the door until now.

The room the door opens to can barely be described as such. If Derek thought that his his box of the past four hours is small, then this one is nothing. It's maybe a quarter of the whole thing. And there's Scott, simply lying there on the dirty floor, curled up on one side. Derek tugs him inside.

He sets Scott as upright as he can, so that he leans with his legs stretched out, toes more than halfway to the opposite wall. Derek squats. He raises a hand into the air, almost in trepidation. Then he overcomes the hesitation and hits. "Scott, wake up!" he urges.

Scott doesn’t stir for three more hits. On the final one, his eyes startle open and he jerks in every direction. His eyes scan the whole room before they dart to Derek, and even then his eyebrows quirk up as though he doesn’t quite believe it.

“Derek?”

Derek nods, wipes his upper lip of sweat and stands again. “How did you get here?” Derek asks, before he can stop himself. But he needs to know as much as he can so he can start forming a plan to get out. 

Scott looks just as overwhelmed as Derek has been feeling. "I - I don't know," he gasps. "I just don't know."

Derek huffs. "Take a minute."

Scott does. He stares at the ground, and Derek can practically see the gears turning in his head. At length, he speaks again. "Stiles was helping me out - we were looking for you, going over some details about how you disappeared. And then I started walking home. It was pretty dark, I guess, but I wasn't worried, you know. Why should I be, right? I got jumped. But - but there's something weird. Those guys, they were all-"

"Human," Derek finishes for him, nodding. "I know."

Scott stands up. "How long have you been here?"

"I don't know. A couple of hours. Is Stiles okay?" Derek asks.

Scott squints, looks to the right as though trying to recall something. "Oh, God," he groans after a moment, and he sounds like the world around him has ended. He sits back down again, head in his hands, and Derek feels his insides seize up.

"What?" Derek presses. "Scott? What is it? Scott!"

Scott picks his head up, eyes desperate.

"Kira was with me."

And that's all fine and dandy, but so not the answer to the question Derek asked. Of course, he can't lose his cool, so he brings his eyebrows to a downward point. "The Kitsune?" he asks, pretending that his entire being isn't on edge. Scott nods.

At that moment, both Scott's and Derek's heads jerk in the same direction - towards the still ajar door. Derek falls into a predatory stance as naturally as breathing. He's ready to charge, and in an instant, Scott is too.

But then the first door starts sliding shut on its own. Derek lunges for it, tries to get in the small closet-room that separates the two werewolves and whatever is outside, but he's left back at square one. Banging on metal.

There's another body dropped. Derek knows just by the scent that it isn't Stiles, but he can't help the feeling of dread either.

 

**Hour 5.**

Scott point blank refuses to let Derek wake Kira up in the same way as he woke up Scott, so they sit there bickering for an hour until she stirs on her own. Second verse, same as the first. She blinks a lot, looks up at the both of them, yanks on the door, bangs on the next one. She gets a bang level with her head. She restates what Scott and Derek both already know - the people keeping them in here are human.

 

**Hour 9.**

 

"But, do you think they know about who we are?" Kira asks. "What we are, I mean?" It's been silent for quite some time now, and the air is pounding into Derek's skull.

The three of them are leaning against separate walls, and Derek is trying to ignore the fuss his stomach is intent upon making. He isn't doing a very good job of it. Scott and Kira both look to be in similar discomfort, but less resigned than Derek.

"They have to," Scott answers. "What else could they want from us?"

"And one of the handlers called me an animal," Derek pitches in with mild disgust. "The only problem is - we can't figure out what they actually intend to do with us now that they have us."

"God, I hate being trapped like mice. Do you think they're going to bring us food any time soon?" Kira asks. She shuffles slightly closer to Scott. Derek feels an internal twinge. He wants to make sure Stiles is okay. After all, Scott mentioned that they had been working on finding Derek together. 

"Oh, man. Don't mention food," Scott groans, clutching his stomach. Derek finds himself resisting the urge to roll his eyes. It's only been a few hours. They ought to be able to hold out a little better than this.

"What's that for, Derek?" Kira asks. "We were up all night looking for you and trying to find out what happened to you. Sorry if we forgot to eat. Looks like we're paying for it now."

Derek raises his eyebrows, says nothing.

 

**Hour 14.**

 

Derek's stomach is constantly making noises. He can barely think straight. He wants to sleep but he can't quiet his mind for long enough to do it. Kira has taken to opening the first door, sitting in the cubby hole, and banging on the second door, much as it takes a toll on both Derek's and Scott's ears. Derek is entirely displeased to find that Scott and Kira are apparently an item, as well, because they won't stop feeding their hippie-hopefulness to each other.

Derek wishes they could just shut up and be miserable like a normal person.

"There has to be a way out," Scott says quietly. "They have to bring us food at some point."

"No, they really don't," Derek says helpfully. He and Scott are leaning against opposite walls, Scott on Derek's left, and Kira's bangs are punctuating their sentences.

"Don't talk like that," she gasps from the second room as she gives another feeble bang. Whoever is on the other side has long-since given up on hitting back.

"Maybe they won't give us food because you're annoying them," says Derek, as it occurs to him. "They obviously don't like it when we make a lot of noise."

"Well, they can shove it up their asses," Kira says, but moves away from the door nonetheless and plants herself next to Scott. She closes her eyes and rests her head on his shoulder. He leans into her like it's a reflex. Derek thinks, with a pang of several dark emotions, of Stiles.

"Wait. That's it," says Scott, as excitedly as he can with an empty stomach and the weight of a Kitsune on him. "They don't want us to make a lot of noise! That must mean that we're somewhere that they could get caught!"

"Brilliant, Scott," Derek says sarcastically. "Maybe they get migraines, too. That means they take migraine pills with their food, so they'll have to give us some of that, too! I can't believe it! We've solved the puzzle!"

"Could you guys not argue? I'm trying to sleep," Kira murmurs against Scott's shoulder. Scott sighs, and Derek can see him physically relieving himself of ill-feelings as he moves even closer to Kira. Derek scowls.

 

**Hour 16.**

 

"Derek, you need to sleep," Scott urges from across the room. Which is still only inches away from Derek. He's flexing his legs to try to keep them from doing whatever, and Derek is laying against the wall but not sleeping.

"There's a lot of things I need right now, Scott," Derek retorts. He can't escape this feeling - he's so on edge that it's killing him. It's keeping him from sleeping, keeping him from thinking straight...

"Derek," Scott insists, and he seems to be coming up with words, but has none. Kira jumps in to save him. This dynamic duo bullshit is really starting to grind on Derek's nerves. Which doesn't help, because he already feels annoyed and mildly discomforted.

"Are you worried about them coming back? Because we'll keep watch," she inputs. "You need at least a little rest if you're going to be any help when they do. Sorry, uh, if they do. And, uh, until then we can also work on getting out. Which you can't do if you can't move from exhaustion."

Derek shoots her a glare. He hates that she's right, that they're both right. "Please, don't invite me to your wedding," he says, then fights to turn over on his side and fall asleep.

 

**Hour 21.**

 

Derek wakes with a start, aching everywhere. For a moment, he is blissfully unaware, and then everything comes rushing back to him. It's like a bucket of sludge washes through him just beneath his skin, and all of his rage gets caught up in his throat. So, he won't be falling asleep again.

"Derek, are you awake?" Scott asks gingerly.

Derek can admit, however, that he has slightly more energy. Sitting up is much less of a hassle than it was before. He arranges himself against the wall furthest from the door this time, though. Scott and Kira have moved, it seems, and are again sitting opposite him. He doesn't answer, because Scott has probably figured it out himself.

"We need to get out of here," Derek says instead. His new enthusiasm is their fault, because has had been in no fighting shape before he fell asleep. Np, he is bubbling with it. He needs to get out, needs to see Stiles, needs to know that he's safe.

"Okay. Great. And how do you suggest we do that?" Kira asks bitterly.

Scott strokes her hands. "Hey, don't argue. Please. It'll all be fine," he murmurs to her softly. Derek wants to puke on them. For not the first, nor the last time, Derek wishes that Stiles was here. And then he corrects himself, because he would never want Stiles to be here, so he wishes that he was with Stiles. 

 

**Hour 24.**

 

Derek can't tell how long it's been anymore. All they can do it stare at the walls, argue with each other, and sleep. He's losing control. His features are regularly shifting in and out of normality. Not just human to wolf, but mixtures of the two, some of which leave him without eyebrows or with bulky teeth, like a kid in serious need of an orthodontist appointment.

Scott's eyes flash red every now and then. Kira is passed out almost constantly, and Scott has not moved from her side in well over three hours. Derek stares ahead.

All he can think about is the need to get out. He's made up his mind. The minute he does, he'll tell Stiles everything. No more Sourwolf. Well, a lot more Sourwolf, but no more Sourwolf to Stiles. Probably.

And besides that, the rumbling of their stomachs is like a goddamn orchestra in Derek's ears. It's all he can hear, until such a point when his thoughts overtake it and the sounds fade into the bottom of existence like background noise.

"Dude. Are you okay?" Scott asks, very quietly (because he knows Derek can still hear him) probably so as not to wake Kira.

"I'm fine," Derek growls. He's slouching. He tries to sit up straighter.

"Is it Stiles?" Scott asks, and Derek's entire body freezes. "Because he was everywhere on this case. He knows everything. In fact, I'm surprised that he's not here by now. He will be soon, okay? We'll get out. I promise."

Derek can't bring himself to answer.

 

**Hour 26.**

 

Derek is certain that it's been at least a day. The walls are beginning to feel like they're pressing in. His stomach feels like it's caving in on itself. He's debating taking advantage of his now-seemingly-permanent claws and slashing his own throat. He's gazing at them mournfully, thinking about how it's absolutely ridiculous that of all the ways to die, he's being finished off by his own body, and because of a box. Of all the heroic deaths he's pictured himself having, this one certainly never entered his nightmares. And then the three of them hear a sound that they haven't heard in what seems like an eternity.

The door is opening.

Derek's best fighting position is leaned against the wall, halfway ready for whatever is about to come through that door.  _It could be food, it could be a fight, it could be nothing_ , he thinks abysmally, as his wolf hearing chooses the worst possible time to fade back into regular human hearing.

Scott looks a mixture of shocked and personally offended, is staring at the door in Derek's same half-crouch.

"What? What is it Scott?" Derek asks urgently. 

Scott only glances at him, shakes his head, and stares back outwards again. The door to the cubbyhole is still open, and this is what convinces Derek that it will be  _fight_ , so he steels himself and gets ready to charge.

But what he sees, he's caught so completely off guard by that he understands why they didn't shut the door. There's no way that the hostages would charge. Stiles is pushed through the first door, which promptly closes and clangs shut as the bar is re-established. He turns, and Derek would be almost relieved to see his relief, apart from the fast that his face looks like it went through a juice processor.

There's a moment of tense silence where Stiles continues to stand in the cubbyhole and survey the three supernatural beings, then he cracks a smile on the side of his mouth that does not contain a split lip and says, "You should see the other guy."

Derek, Scott, and Kira are all staring at the turkey sub in Stiles's hands, but the dynamic duo have morals so they insist on asking how he is first before sitting down.

"Shut up," Stiles answers, and he begins ripping the sandwich. He hands the first large chunk to Scott, the next to Kira, and finally one to Derek. Stiles's own portion is significantly smaller. "Nice shoe," he says to Derek, with a sarcastic nod.

"What are you doing?" Derek asks hesitantly, but he nurses in a bite of his own sandwich anyway. It's like he can feel himself coming alive again as he swallows, and he wants to shred the whole thing down his throat in one bite, but he's smarter than that. He wants to keep it down.

"I was jumped," Stiles begins, shrugging nonchalantly, but Derek interjects.

"No. I mean - that." He nods to Stiles's barely-sandwich. "You need your strength, too."

"I'll be fine," Stiles insists, eyebrows drawn together like he's confused that Derek's making a big fuss out of it. "I am the only one in this room who has actually eaten in the past day, according to Smelly out there. By the way, did you guys notice that they're-"

"Human," cuts off everyone else in the room, Kira and Scott both nodding. Their sandwiches are already half gone. Derek takes another bite of his own.

"Yes," Scott says singularly. "How did you get here, Stiles?"

"Not important at the moment. What's important is what I found out," Stiles says. Derek takes another bite. "I talked to Argent and I even got in touch with Braedon. They've never heard of anything like this. It goes against the code. It looks like those guys don't know that you're not human."

"What?" Derek asks, as he nearly chokes. "So it was just a coincidence that they-"

"Yes, exactly!" Stiles almost yells.

"We've got plenty of time to worry about that, Stiles. How did you get here?" Scott asks pointedly. 

"Well, funny story. I  _was_ actually eating. I was in my kitchen with a plate, and this asshole comes up and corners me. He smells like an entire bar, occupants included, by the way, looks like a goddamn transient, and he takes out a knife," Stiles says animatedly. Derek wonders if he even registers what's happened to them. At the moment, he doesn't care, because the last few hours have been a torrent of uncertainty as to whether he would ever see that face again. He can't take his eyes off of it. Stiles is certainly noticing, and sending more than a few glances back his way, but even considering this Derek still can't look away. "So I smash the plate on the ground and I say 'come and get me' you know? So this asshole does, he starts climbing through the shards. His foot blood is probably all over my goddamn kitchen now, and hopefully it's enough for my dad to figure out where he's keeping us - because that's all I couldn't solve, is where he was keeping you guys."

"That's clever," Derek remarks in mildly suppressed amazement.

"Yes, well, I'm clever," Stiles says. Derek give a semi-eye roll and takes another bite of his sandwich.

 

**Hour 27.**

 

If Derek thought he was on edge before, now he is completely unhinged. He doesn't know how to deal with Stiles being here. On the one hand, he is over the moon and brimming with good feelings. On the other hand, he spikes every few seconds with the thought that Stiles is in  _danger_. That they're  _al_ _l_ in danger.

Stiles stands in the corner that is second farthest from the door. He's closest to wear Derek is sitting. Derek is acutely aware of this. He staring at some fixed point in the opposite corner, but doesn't seem to be actually seeing anything. He must be thinking. Derek doesn't want to interrupt him, but at that moment, Stiles's eyes flash to his.

And, yes, somehow Derek has managed to become completely unhinged by this teenager - the very same one that he met when the human in question could barely walk in a straight line due to his own incompetence, but now seems to be severely measured in how he handles, well, _everything_. 

Stiles quirks an eyebrow, and Derek simultaneously hates and loves the fact that he can read it. He hears Stiles's voice very plainly in his head, saying, without question,  _Yes?_

Derek, himself being even more versed in eyebrow, contorts his own to convey  _What are you doing?_

Stiles glances at Scott and Kira, who are saying nothing to each other, but aren't looking at Stiles or Derek either. Stiles speaks first.

"So, I think we should have one werewolf awake at all times. That means that Derek and Scott, you guys are going to want to learn to alternate sleeping patterns. Of course, that's assuming that we're here for a long time. Which we'd better not be. There's not a lot of privacy in this place at all. Which reminds me, which corner have we established as the pee corner?"

Derek rolls his eyes. He gestures with a nod to the corner Stiles is currently standing in. Stiles's eyes triple in size. He double-takes toward the wall, then takes three steps closer to Derek, sits down in the middle of the floor uneasily.

 

**Hour 28.**

 

Scott decides to sleep first. Kira figures that she had better rest too, so they curl up together, against their same corner. Stiles and Derek regard their situation awkwardly for several minutes.

"Soooooo... you've been here - how long?" Stiles asks innocently.

Derek shrugs. He feels oddly vulnerable, because he knows that Stiles could pick and prod into every corner of him, and right now, Derek would not object to it even once. He says, "At least a day. Scott showed up a few hours after I got here. And then Kira. And now you."

Stiles gripes. "And I totally could have gotten to the bottom of it by now, if that jackass hadn't turned up and ruined everything."

"Do you know why he would have come after you? Or any of us, really?" Derek asks. Stiles, as much as Derek would have hated to admit it a few months ago, always has the answers. 

Stiles lurches as though he's just had a brilliant idea. "Yes! Right!" he exclaims quietly, so as not to wake the others. Derek is grateful. He's not sure how much he could manage with talking to Stiles is he had an audience. "So, I forgot to mention this all because Scott got me off topic earlier. As  _not_ as it seems, there's a method to my madness. Even if I don't have a way with words."

"And?" Derek prompted.

"Okay!" Stiles corrected his train of thought. "So, these guys have been doing this for a while. I snuck into the station one night, and my dad has files on a couple of them - I had Danny hack a few street cameras so we could get their faces - but not them as a whole. It's because they pretty much started a little gang thing. There've been a whole bunch of disappearances every few months around this area. They roam around a lot, it looks like. Probably because they each live in a different area, I don't know how they met, so they take turns terrorizing their own towns. It's sick, I know. My dad's been trying to hunt them down for years, but he could never get a solid grip on where they operated from."

Derek hates to interrupt, mostly because hearing Stiles's voice is like a dream, but he has questions burning within him that only Stiles could answer. "Do you know any more details about the case? About how long they might keep us here?"

Stiles's breath catches. Derek instinctively wants to reach out for him, then realizes that he's an idiot who has no right to do that. "Another two or three days at most," Stiles answers solemnly. "I'm sorry," he says, as though he feels that he has personally let Derek down by delivering this news.

That's definitely not good news, but, somehow, Derek isn't discouraged. He cocks his head, asks softly, "Why aren't you scared?" There's silence for a moment, as Stiles's gaze flicks downward. He laughs humorlessly.

"I'm  _terrified_ ," he says after a moment, no louder himself. "Thing is, though, I know that I'll never be as terrified as I was... back when..."

"It's alright," Derek finds himself saying. He reaches out, almost on reflex, and lays a hand on Stiles's knee. Comforting him. Stiles's gaze darts to it, and the air is heavy as they both wonder what he will do next.

He looks back up at Derek and carries on without the slightest hitch. "So they can do what they want to me. I'm fine."

And Derek really doesn't like the sound of that.

 

**Hour 33.**

Derek is running on fumes. He needs to sleep, and he knows it - hell, everybody in the hemisphere know it. But it's only Stiles who manages to actually convince him of it, a little while after Scott and Kira wake up.

"You should clock out for a while too, Stiles," Scott says. He still watches Stiles carefully, as though looking at him will break the fragile skin even more. Stiles scoffs.

"I'm fine," he insists, echoing Derek.

"Scott's right. You need your strength. As much as you can get. We never know when those guys might come back," Kira says. Derek doesn't know why he's aiming all of his frustration at her (and Scott) but right now he is severely annoyed by the both of them being here.

"Well the only spot left is the piss corner, and I'm not taking it," Stiles says flatly. Derek can see the splotches of purple under his eyes. He wants to pull Stiles down and offer himself as a pillow. But that would be seen as weird and unnecessary. Derek curses himself for not being good enough.

"There's plenty of other room. Derek, scoot over," Scott says, and Derek doesn't know if he should take that order as a beta from an alpha or not.

And, suddenly, Derek is laughing his ass off, because that thought was just too damn  _funny_ to him to be ignored. It starts off with a crisp sound from the back of his mouth, then evolves into giggles that strengthen enough to be full on laughter, hearty and resonant.  


He can tell that everyone in the room is extremely confused by this, but for everything he's ever been worth, he simply doesn't care, because this is exactly what he needs. It loosens the rock that's been clenched in his gut for the past day and a half. And then Stiles starts to give a few hesitant chuckles, and then he's rolling on the floor and staring at the sight of Derek laughing.

Derek can't blame him. It's been a long time.

He wouldn't trade this moment for the world, dynamic duo, kidnapping, and all. 

 

**Hour 39.**

 

Derek's getting weaker again, he can feel it. If their captives don't supply them with more sustenance soon, it's going to be incredibly difficult to remain half as alert as he's been already - although, admittedly, that's probably what they want.

And then Stiles rolls over in his sleep so that he's practically cradled against Derek, and, yep, Derek's pretty sure he can fly.

Scott looks over almost as soon as this occurs, either because it obviously can't escape his notice or because Derek's heart rate picks up for a small instant. He and Derek meet eyes. "Are you...?" he asks quietly, eyebrows raised in that way he raises them, the only thing that could puncture Derek's moment. And even then, only slightly.

"Scott, don't," Derek says sharply. He's probably readjusting himself to fit back into Stiles as he speaks, but he doesn't care. Oh  _God_ , he realizes with a pang.  _They're cuddling_. _  
_

 

**Hour 41.**

 

Derek wakes up because Scott nudges him sheepishly. Stiles is still curled around him. He thinks for a moment that he's in Heaven before he realizes that it's actually Hell.

"Hey. Derek, sorry. I just - I just can't keep my eyes open. Are you okay to keep watch?" Scott asks.

Derek surveys his surroundings slowly, then takes in a large, sleepy breath as he nods. "Get some rest," he encourages. His back is stiff and he wants to adjust himself, but Stiles is sleeping so peacefully that Derek thinks his heart might shatter because of how cute it is. He stays put.

"And, for the record," Scott says, "I think you two would be cute together."

Derek's glare shoots to Scott so fast that he nearly rips a hole into the space-time-continuum. His gaze shoots to Kira, who still appears to be sleeping soundly against the wall, and he wants to growl.

"Scott. Don't."

"Look, I know you're scared for a whole bunch of reasons, but I think he would be-"

"Scott," Derek says, almost like a plea. He can't stand to think of that right now - of anything like that. Not when Stiles is so close, literally, but so far from ascertainable. He looks down at Stiles's sleeping form, and it's like everything slots into place. All the misplaced communication between him and Scott, all of the feelings he has been doing terribly to suppress, and, mostly, this new territory that Derek has thrown himself into. He's admitted it. It's fact. Now what does he do with it?

 

**Hour 43.**

 

Stiles wakes after a few more hours. At this point, Scott and Kira are both dead to the world. Derek feels like this may be his last chance (literally) to say anything to Stiles in privacy.

" 'Sgoinon?" Stiles asks sleepily, mingling with an intake of breath. Derek's heart lurches. Yes, he definitely needs to say something before this little crush destroys him. Stiles blinks at Derek a few times, and Derek can  _see_ it. He can spot the exact moment that Stiles realizes what's going on and how it all comes rushing back to him like the surrounding air being sucked into his head. It hits Derek like a bullet to the stomach.

Stiles must notice the look on Derek's face from seeing that, because he asks, "Hey. You okay?"

Derek guesses that this is the right moment, so he says, "Uh, no, actually. I - I've got something to tell you." And  _why_ is this the first time he's stumbled over his words in who knows how long?

Stiles's eyes widen a fraction and his heart rate picks up. Derek decides at that moment that he'll take it back. There's no way he can say it.

But Stiles has other plans. "You - don't worry about it," he says. "I know."

Derek raises both eyebrows, not sure that Stiles knows at all. "What?"

"Well, I mean, I didn't  _know_ ," Stiles continues, throwing out a hand and glancing at Scott and Kira, past Derek, unsurely. "But I had a lot of suspicions for it. But they weren't confirmed until today. If you can call this whole fiasco a today. I'm not sure it wasn't yesterday."

"Oh, my  _God_ ," Derek says, shoving his face into his dirty right hand. "I cannot believe you. You're making this as difficult and awkward as it could possibly be. I'm not even sure you know what's going on."

"Of course I do," Stiles says. "You're hot for me."

If there was anything in Derek's stomach, he's sure it would be thrown up. Or worse. He presses his face farther into his hand, as far as it will go, then looks up. "Can you at least give me a chance to be romantic about it?"

Stiles scoffs. "What's romantic right now? We can smell four kinds of piss from right next to us, we haven't eaten in-"

"Stiles," Derek says lowly, pressing in close, and reaching up so that he has a thumb on Stiles's chin and fingers resting underneath it. They're so close now, Derek can smell the grime on him, can see every detail of his face, down to the last infinitesimal freckle. Stiles  _whimpers_.

He nods clumsily. "Okay," he squeaks out.

And that's so much closer to what Derek has been expecting. It puts him back on the rails, makes him able to push in just that little bit closer, so that they're kissing.

Stiles makes some sort of breathy sound from the base of his throat, and Derek feels better than he's felt in countless hours, seemingly days. Suddenly, it's all worth it, for whatever reason, because the pining is over and now Stiles is saying he's alright with it.

Until he pulls back and mushes his head against the wall to put some space between the pair of their lips, and Derek is suddenly dreading that he's done everything absolutely wrong. Stiles grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him back in.

"So - so we should go see a movie when we get out of here, right?" he asks breathlessly, but doesn't give Derek a chance to answer before they're kissing again.

It doesn't matter. They both know the answer.

 

**Hour 46.**

 

"You know what I really want right now?" Stiles asks, once Kira and Scott are awake. Derek looks at him. Stiles can translate it to  _Go on_. "I want to have a mountain of chocolate chip cookies. Like, a literal mountain. Of warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies homemade and fresh out of the oven and a glass of milk the size of my arm. I want to have so many warm chocolate cookies that I can literally lay in them like a goddamn bed."

"Stiles," says Scott breathlessly. "Are you really going to talk about food right now?"

"And a bath. I want to have the warmest and most relaxing goddamn bath of my entire life just as soon as I can. Do you think if we said 'please' these guys would let us go?" Stiles continues.

"Doubtful," Derek inputs.

"What would you eat, Derek, eh? You could be eating anything and doing anything right now - which of the two?" Stiles asks.

Derek pauses for thought. Kira and Scott are both listening raptly, as though they don't believe that Derek is actually considering answering the question. "Kibble, and I'd be stretching my leg over a fire hydrant." It's worth it, the utter humiliation of saying those words in front of living beings, if Derek can only see Stiles's eyes light up and a smile stretch over his face.

Kira  _snorts_. "I'd be burrowing down into a little hole and hibernating the hell out of myself," she says. Derek isn't quite sure that that sentence is grammatically correct.

"I'd be out howling at the moon," Scott says quietly. After a quick second of amiable silence, he adds, "Maybe also humping a tree."

 

**Hour 47.**

 

The door opens just as Derek concludes that he is feeling the weakest he's felt in he doesn't even know how long. He startles, and causes Stiles to do the same just because they've been "sharing body heat" as they've told Scott and Kira, for the last half hour.

In the doorway is standing a thin man with a black pistol in his hand. He's wearing dirty camouflage, and Derek feels like he shouldn't be surprised by this. His mostly-gray-rather-than-brown hair is tucked underneath a baseball cap. He's waving the gun around carelessly as he speaks, which makes Derek grip Stiles tightly. It's a testament to how exhausted he is, because he can't even stand.

"Alright, which one of y'all am I shooting in the head?"

Kira looks up in confusion. "What?" she squeaks.

"You all know too much about us. We decide you lot is best dead. Who am I shooting? Decide, and we'll throw you in a sandwich or somethin..." the guy says, almost whimsically. Derek can hear his steady heartbeat. He glares.

"You can't be serious," Stiles says, working his way into a standing position.

"Oh, is it you then?" the man asks. He points the gun directly at Stiles, and Derek fights to his feet over a span of seconds. He plants himself as firmly as he can manage between the two humans.

"You're not touching him," Derek growls. His eyes are on the verge of shining, but Derek knows that he has to maintain some control. This guy could have friends right outside, and then where would any of them be. Besides, he and Stiles have a date.

"So, it's you?" he asks. "Listen, I don't care either way. I just know somebody's gotta go."

Scott glances up from where he sits at the man's feet. "Why don't you just kill all of us now?" he asks spitefully. The man looks delighted that he asked.

"Not as much fun," he says, perky. "Tick tick, I'm running out of patience. I run out, I decide. I decide, there ain't no warning. Just brains. Across the wall. Pwfffsh. D'you want that?"

"It's me," Stiles says from behind Derek, and Derek wants to smack Stiles, because that's clearly the only way to knock sense back into him.

"No, it's not. It's me," Derek corrects, promptly, as he crumples. Stiles drops to his side, clutches his hand. Derek groans. He hates hates hates himself for not being able to protect Stiles. He holds tightly. "Don't," he gasps, then repeats it in a string of pants.

The man looks unimpressed. He gestures the cubbyhole. "Shall we?" he asks lazily, bushy eyebrows raised.

Stiles glances between Derek, the gun, and the man a thousand times. Then he stands. Derek clutches to any part that he can hold, shaking his head but not feeling strong enough to put together words anymore. Apart from his lack of strength, his willpower is being crushed. This is going to break him. This can't happen.

"No. It's not him. It's me," says Scott. Derek regrets ever thinking anything bad about Scott. Scott is a wonderful, wonderful person. Scott deserves all happiness with Kira.

The man looks between every face in the room. "You're all very keeeeeeeen to die for him," he says, like he's won the lottery. He reaches out for Stiles's shoulder, grabs it roughly. Derek uses what strength he can conjure to swipe at his ankles. The man easily dodges it. "Come on, kid. Hope you don't mind headaches."

"Derek," Stiles says softly, looking down at him.

"We have a date," Derek reminds him. "You can't..."

Stiles squats down and bumps his nose to Derek's before kissing him like a dying - no... Derek can feel all of his emotions bristling and bubbling beneath him like an overflowing cauldron. He needs Stiles to stay. He physically can't handle even the thought of Stiles dying this way.

"Come on, lovebird," the man chides testily. He yanks Stiles away harshly, and with one step, the two of them are pressed together in the cubbyhole. Derek stares at Stiles and Stiles at Derek. Stiles looks to be on the verge of tears, the door slowly sliding shut, cutting them off much too soon.

And Derek shuts his eyes tightly, wills his ears to go as deaf as they can, because he can't bear to hear the-

Gunshot.

Everything within him seizes up, and Derek feels like he is going to vomit. He thinks, for one terrible second, that he really will. His heart is pounding erratically in his chest and his hands are shaking and every appendage feels numb. Derek doesn't know how to cope. He can smell the blood, the blood, the blood... The blood.

The blood is not Stiles's blood.

The door swings open again. Stiles is splattered with red, not for the first time, and holding a gun. He receives the looks of awe, but there's no witty one-liner this time. He drops the gun to the floor, wipes his mouth, and takes a shaky step farther into the room. He looks appalled. Derek can hardly believe that this is the same cocky teenager who stumbled into the box less than a day ago.

"Stiles..." Scott says quietly, and Derek isn't sure if Stiles is just ignoring it or if he honestly didn't hear it. Their eyes are locked together, Stiles's and Derek's, and Derek isn't sure what to think. But he can feel the relief like a physical ache in his bones. All he is right now is grateful.

"Come here," he says, and Stiles practically dives onto him, wraps his arms around Derek's middle.

"I did it. Holy - I just killed him, Derek. I just shot him."

Derek's hand flies up as if he has been given new life, and his fingers card into Stiles's hair. "It's okay," he murmurs. "You're alright."

"I just - I knew you wouldn't. Your goddamn stupid martyr complex, I knew you would die. I couldn't - I had to save you," Stiles sobs weakly. Derek wraps his arms tighter, inhales deeply.

He is just about to tell him that it's alright again when the door opens once more. Derek is about ready to tear the next redneck's head off with his bear hands, physical strength or not, but what he sees is nearly dumbfounding.

Deputy Parrish walks inside warily, gun poised, then sighs in relief. He reaches for the radio on his chest. "Sheriff? I've found them. He's okay. False alarm on the shot fired." He pauses. "Sort of."

 

**Hour 1.**

 

The flashing lights of the ambulance are really too much for Derek. He can see Stiles, a few yards away, sitting in the back of another ambulance with his Dad, who looks so exhausted, but at the same time, absolutely thrilled. Stiles's head is leaned on his shoulder, and the Sheriff has an arm around his shoulder that's resting in his son's hair. They aren't saying anything to each other, but Stiles is answering questions to another police officer.

Scott and Kira are nearby as well, but Derek isn't nearly as concerned with them. They're being taken into the hospital in a matter of minutes to be treated for starvation and a few other minor problems, much the same as Derek, only they both have parents as well to see them off.

Derek has nobody, apart from Deputy Parrish, who is cautiously but intently questioning him about what happened. Derek's gaze keeps flashing back to Stiles.

And then Stiles looks up.

Their gazes are caught, and it's like their first shared moment back in the box again. They're having an entire conversation with only these looks.

Stiles is tired. And Derek is exhausted. And they're both still frazzled from the events. They know that it's going to take a while to recover from the past two days. But Derek, for one, is okay. Because he has Stiles now, and that's more than what he had going in. His only thought is that he needs to be back at Stiles's side as soon as possible.

And he'll be bringing him chocolate chip cookies.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry that this is just over all shitty. The majority of it was written in the early hours of the morning. On that subject, as it is nearly four AM, I will proofread it tomorrow. I'm just super anxious to get this out here, for whatever reason.


End file.
